Is our top priority trying to do away with religion altogether, or is it trying to make the world a better place? If it is the latter, then we must change our approach, reach out to religious liberals and moderates and work together.

Many atheists do not claim to know that God does not exist; they believe it to be so because it makes most sense of their own lives and the world around them. This is not sure and certain knowledge; it is a belief.

The squabbles between fundamentalists and the New Atheists are tragic because left-leaning religious communities and progressive atheists cannot find each other, thus failing to make common cause on a shared vision of ecological and social justice.